Holi!

Our last day of co-op is upon us! For this last celebration, we will be inviting everyone at our end of co-op celebration to join in the festivities.
Here is what we are going to do. After all of the other festivities have ended, the group will make any necessary pitstops and gather all of our belongings and exit the building to the field (where the witches frolicked for Walpurgisnacht). We will NOT be re-entering the building. The clean-up crew will be cleaning up while we are outside.
Traditionally, white is worn for Holi. It won't be white for long though, so keep that in mind. I am thinking we will have a large white shirt to put over clothes that can be stripped off before leaving. Again, we will NOT be re-entering the building after Holi.
I am going to be using non-toxic powdered tempera paints and I am going to be mixing it with corn starch. Hopefully, this will work for the majority of our allergy sufferers. I am not sure how we can avoid the flying powder, so asthmatics be aware!
I am going to bring swim goggles for my kids, just to avoid the possibility of an eye injury. 

Holi is the Hindu festival that welcomes the Spring and celebrates the new life and energy of the season. Although Holi has religious roots, not much religious activity is involved in its celebration.
Holi is the most energetic Indian festival, filled with fun and good humor; even the strict rules of separation between castes are abandoned.
Holi is also called 'The Festival of Colors', and people celebrate the festival by smearing each other with paint, and throwing colored powder and dye around in an atmosphere of great good humor.

The Legend of Prahalad and Holika

This is the main Holi legend. Holika was a female demon, and the sister of Hiranyakashyap, the demon king. Hiranyakashyap considered himself ruler of the Universe, and higher than all the gods.
Prahalad was the king's son. His father hated him because Prahalad was a faithful devotee of the god Vishnu.
One day the king asked him "Who is the greatest, God or I?"
"God is," said the son, "you are only a king."
The king was furious and decided to murder his son.
But the king's attempts at murder didn't work too well. Prahalad survived being thrown over a cliff, being trampled by elephants, bitten by snakes, and attacked by soldiers.
So the king asked his sister, Holika, to kill the boy.
Holika seized Prahalad and sat in the middle of a fire with the boy on her lap.
Holika had been given a magic power by the gods that made her immune to fire, so she thought this was a pretty good plan, and Prahalad would burn to death while she remained cool.
But it's never wise to take gods' gifts for granted! Because Holika was using her gift to do something evil, her power vanished and she was burned to ashes. Prahalad stayed true to his God, Vishnu, and sat praying in the lap of his demon aunt. Vishnu protected him, and Prahalad survived.
Shortly afterwards, Vishnu killed King Hiranyakashyap and Prahad ruled as a wise king in his father's place.

Moral

The moral of the story is that good always wins over evil, and those who seek to torment the faithful will be destroyed.
To celebrate the story, large bonfires are burned during Holi. In many parts of India, a dummy of Holika is burned on the fire.

Reference: BBC Religions  http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/hinduism/holydays/holi_1.shtml

Πάσχα, Paskha

We know this holiday as Easter. In the U.S., the celebration is going to be this weekend. However, we are traveling to Greece this week and the celebration is not until April 15.
Easter is linked to the Jewish Passover by much of its symbolism, as well as by its position in the calendar. In many languages, the words for "Easter" and "Passover" are etymologically related.
 Easter is the most sacred observance in the Greek Orthodox faith. Preparations and customs remain some of the most traditional in modern Greek life.
Much of the celebration is centered around the food. We will be taking some traditionally red dyed eggs and decorating them with gold.We will also play a traditional Greek game with the eggs. You can see at the end of that video how the game is played. Although, the eggs are supposed to be hit head on head or bottom on bottom, not sideways like one of them. I wonder whose egg will last the longest?
Iconography is very important in the Orthodox church. We will be making replicas of icons. Members of the Orthodox church are highly protective of these images and their importance, so we are doing them for purposes of looking at the style of the images and how they would be presented, not for worship purposes. You will notice when you click on the link to the Icons, that all of them are in a very similar style called Byzantine. It is highly stylized with the intention of taking you to another, higher place.

Kodomo No Hi

I hope everybody had a great Spring Break!
This week we will be venturing to Japan to celebrate Kodomo No Hi, or Children's Day. Traditions for this holiday include flying carp windsocks, displaying Kintaro figures, and Kabuto. We will also be trying out mochi!

Preparing for our Purim celebration...

The kids and I made bowling pin versions of Haman's sons to knock down tomorrow.

Purim

This week our class is traveling to Israel to celebrate Purim. 

Purim is a Jewish festival which commemorates the deliverance of Jews from Persia and from the efforts of Haman to destroy them, as recorded in the book of Esther. 

During the Megilla (or scroll) readings, children often dress up as their favorite characters in the story and it is traditional to use noisemakers to drown out the "evil" name of Haman whenever it is read. Purim has a carnival-like atmosphere. 

 

St. Walpurga's Night (Walpurgisnacht)

Besom

I have been puzzling about mass producing besoms for our class this Thursday. I thought I was going to have to go out and forage for grasses and sticks, but Dollar Tree to the rescue! I found 5 ft. long bamboo poles and bunches of "broom grass". So far, I have only enough for 10 brooms, but they went together quickly.

 This is what the finished besom looks like.

 OK, so if Duct Tape  EXISTED in the medieval ages, witches would have TOTALLY used it. I laid the broom grass along the duct tape so that it was able to stick to it, then I wrapped it around the bamboo. Then I took another strip of tape and wrapped it again to help seal off that top edge.